Kukla's Korner Hockey

After the National Hockey League's players ratified the collective bargaining agreement yesterday, both Bob Goodenow and Gary Bettman spoke about a new sense of co-operation.
But really, it no longer matters an awful lot whether they co-operate or not.
The players' union head and the league's commissioner will be involved in some issues, but what the league needs more than anything is co-operation from the players themselves.
It's the only way to make the game a better spectacle.
As far as Detroit Red Wings forward Brendan Shanahan is concerned, that co-operation will be in abundant supply. He is a member of the competition committee which has drawn up the new rules that are expected to be approved by the league's board of governors today.
But perhaps just as importantly, he is demanding a new approach from the players and coaches, one that will give the game a chance to regain its lost popularity.
Shanahan was present when the ratification was announced yesterday, even though he had no direct involvement with it. But he wanted to be front and centre to make some points about the changing face of the NHL.
He wants, for instance, to implement the type of changes to which hockey old-timers like Leafs coach Pat Quinn have been violently opposed.
"There are things that the fans want that are very exciting parts of hockey that we choose not to do enough," Shanahan said. "In hockey, we've always been a very modest group where we don't want to wear microphones. We don't want to let cameras in the dressing rooms.
"We don't want the fans and media to see us at the highest of our high emotions and the lowest of our low emotions. Fans are telling us that's exactly when they want to see us, not 15 minutes after the game is over when we've already been in the back room and broken some chairs. They want to see us break the chairs."